


i took hope and held it hostage

by uptillthree



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Gen, Power Trio, Silver Trio, dumbledore’s army hijinks, ginny said fuck severus snape, the semester from hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22401724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uptillthree/pseuds/uptillthree
Summary: “Luna. Carrow’s staring. Stop it.”“Is she?”“Luna—” Ginny’s gaze falls to the book Luna’s vandalizing, and her heart almost stops. Luna’s book is covered in little lightning bolts and phoenixes and rebellious little verses and one particular, impressively realistic sketch of Dumbledore.Fuck.(The resistance outside Hogwarts had begun decades and decades ago, all the way in the First Wizarding War. Within Hogwarts of 1997, however, it had begun with a little old-fashioned graffiti.)
Relationships: Neville Longbottom & Luna Lovegood & Ginny Weasley
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	i took hope and held it hostage

**Author's Note:**

> opened my old hp folder for fun and realized i had a whole fic almost ready to go, so like. i fixed it up a little and here she is!! 
> 
> marking this complete for now, but there are half-thoughts of doing this in nev and luna povs, bc this is really like just 5% of the shit that was going on in hogwarts 1997 tbh, which could be interesting!! so if you liked it keep an eye out?? i guess?? kudos and comments are really appreciated!!

i.

The war outside Hogwarts had started years ago, but the war within it begins on the first of September, 1997, as Severus Snape stood in the place of the man he had murdered, and declared the beginning of a new school year.

 _Like hell_ , Ginny thinks. 

The resistance outside Hogwarts had begun decades and decades ago, all the way in the First Wizarding War. Within Hogwarts of 1997, however, it had begun with a little old-fashioned graffiti.

ii.

To specify: Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, and Neville Longbottom started it, and not at all on purpose. 

After all, it is difficult to plan meetings with her friends, let alone Dumbledore’s Army, because the Carrows and Snape are everywhere, seemingly waiting for them—but that’s all right. They’d gotten in lots of practice two years ago, because of Umbridge.

No one really _decides_ to reunite the Army again. Neville talks about it once or twice, but he doesn’t seem to think it possible, not without Harry and Ron and Hermione here. 

But she and Luna and Neville meet in the Room of Requirement often, because it’s just the three of them and it’s so safe, safer than the Gryffindor commons—and it doesn’t take long. Soon Seamus comes with them, not wanting to deal with an empty dorm where there used to be five boys; soon Lavender and Parvati slip in with them; soon Parvati brings her twin; soon her twin brings her closest friends, and it goes on and on and on… Until at last, faster than Ginny would have expected—Dumbledore’s Army had assembled again.

And it’s good. It’s a _risk_ , and it’s doing something _important_ , and as long as it’s with these people Ginny can trust with her life, it’s safe.

iii.

“Luna?”

Luna was scribbling absently in the margins of her Defense book, her eyes very far away. Ginny remembers her doing the same in fourth year Defense—except this is not fourth year Defense, and the teacher is not Umbridge. (Worse.)

“Luna,” Ginny says, not daring to raise her voice above a whisper, “Carrow’s staring at you. Stop it.” Amycus Carrow is glaring, as a matter of fact, and normally Ginny would not have given one shit, but he is glaring, specifically, at Luna. Which is frightening. 

“Is he?” Luna asks, with a dreamy, knowing little smile. 

“Luna—” Ginny’s gaze falls to the book Luna is vandalizing, and she swears her heart almost stops. The writing is almost illegibly small, but even still she can see that Luna’s book is covered in little lightning bolts and phoenixes and rebellious little verses and one particular, impressively realistic sketch of Dumbledore.

_Fuck!_

“Luna, please,” Ginny hisses. How can she stand it with Carrow watching her like that? Does Carrow see what she’s doing? _“Turn the page.”_

Luna almost grins. Ginny wonders idly if the Sorting Hat had considered placing her in Gryffindor. 

“Okay. But only because you said so.”

iv.

“Luna, _the hell_?” 

Ginny watches the shock unfold around them, and she sends Luna her sternest look. It’s hard when she’s looking so happy like that—almost in a self-satisfied way. Seamus stares at the pages of Luna’s book in horror. “You’re lucky he didn’t catch you drawing all that! If he had…”

“You lions do it,” Luna says. “Go against the rules, I mean. Some of the badgers and eagles do it too. Harry used to do it plenty.”

“Merlin!” Seamus sits back, his head hitting the wall with a dull thump. “Harry was a terrible influence.”

“Gryffindors generally are,” Ernie Macmillan snaps. 

“I don’t know where you got the nerve,” Padma Patil says. “You know Amycus Carrow gave Nev a detention for looking him in the eye yesterday, and you go and do that without batting an eye?”

“It wasn’t for looking him in the eye,” Neville murmurs, looking as if he was thinking of things very far away. There is a purpling bruise on his cheek, which is—thankfully—the worst of what came out of his detention with Carrow. “It was because Gran’s been speaking out against blood supremacy and things, and because—because they knew my parents.” His voice lowers on the last word, but it doesn’t break. 

There is a soft silence in the room. It’s broken by Seamus quietly clearing his throat and saying, “The drawings are awfully good, y’know, Luna.”

“Why thank you,” Luna says, her smile widening. “It was very fun to do.”

“I’ll bet,” Seamus whispers. He’s clutching at Luna’s book now, jaw clenched, a wistful note to his voice, and Ginny remembers, looking at him, that Dean Thomas had liked drawing things too—but he was on the run now. Seamus swallows. “Still dangerous, though. Especially with Amycus Carrow in front of you.”

“I didn’t get caught,” Luna says, unbothered.

“That’s not the point,” Ginny says at once. “It’s dangerous—”

Luna shakes her head, staring hard at her, and Ginny stops talking with a frown. Luna isn’t smiling anymore, but the bright, hopeful gleam of her blue eyes remains. “I didn’t get caught,” she says. “And I did nothing wrong. Isn’t that what matters?”

v.

The next day, Lavender Brown shakes her out of bed. _Ginny, you have to come quickly._ A harsh whisper.

Ginny runs to the Entrance Hall as if her life depends on it. There, there on the great double doors—Luna’s work. Luna’s art. Luna’s ink portrait of Dumbledore, recreated thirty times larger in white ink, almost glowing against the dark wood. 

It’s breath-taking. Ginny almost laughs aloud, but she fears that if she starts laughing she may never stop. 

Around her, people whisper, asking and asking questions. The Slytherins look either furious or—dare she say it—fearful. The Carrows are bellowing vengeance, screaming the idiot who did this will pay, and Ginny wants to laugh even louder, because that means they don’t know a thing about who did it. Professor McGonagall—she’s trying to look impassive, but there is a knowing sort of pride in her dark eyes. Snape is nowhere to be seen.

“You’re a delight,” Ginny murmurs to Luna later, when they’re safely in the Room of Requirement. She pulls Luna close and presses her lips to the girl’s forehead. “You are an absolute _delight_ , Luna Lovegood.”

“It’s only a Duplicate charm. And an Enlargement one,” Luna said. Ginny’s rarely seen her so pleased. “I did say I wouldn’t get caught.” 

“This time you didn’t,” Ernie mutters, a warning note in his voice, but he’s proud too. They all are.

“There’s one thing you did wrong, though, Luna,” Neville says, voice hard. Everyone looks at him. Ginny arches an eyebrow.

Neville tilts his head. Grins. “You didn’t let us in on it.”

vi.

Just like that, it turns into a— a rebellion, a project, an outlet for everyone’s anger. Neville, surprisingly, is eager to do it, _wants_ to do it— but Ginny gets that. Ginny wants to feel like she’s making a difference too. 

So Neville spearheads the operation, Ginny plans the defence, and Luna—Luna is the heart of everything. It’s a straightforward, simple sort of arrangement: Luna asks for buckets and buckets of gold and pink ink— which, surprisingly, Ernie Macmillan and Su Li are well-stocked with. 

Once Luna’s satisfied with that, Ginny, Neville, and the Patil twins station themselves along the necessary corridors, Disillusionment charms all over. (The Patil twins are _unbeatable_ when they fight together— they sort of remind Ginny of Fred and George, but she can’t think about that or she’ll get all stupidly nostalgic— and Ginny and Neville were a pretty good pair of duellists themselves, if Ginny said so herself.)

Because Neville is an anxious, meticulous planner, he has all the professors’ patrol schedules figured out, and Dumbledore’s Army’s first attempt at revolt goes so well Ginny could have cried. When morning comes, a painted phoenix beats her wings on the stones of the Entrance Hall. When she opens her mouth to sing, Ginny swears she can hear the stones tremble.

When students and professors alike scramble to see it, the Carrows furious and the little kids amazed, Ginny stays back and grips Luna’s hand hard.

vii.

They get bolder as time goes on. Lavender emblazons the Gryffindor crest on Alecto Carrow’s office door, and even when that endangers all the Gryffindors she regrets it only a little. It’s Terry and Hannah who take up that trend, stamping the Ravenclaw eagle and the Hufflepuff badger crudely on Amycus’ classroom walls. 

It’s Neville himself who brings up his wand and writes on the wall outside the Headmaster’s office— _DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY LIVES._

In the end that had been the most foolish, but worth it to see Severus Snape’s terrified face the next day.

viii.

Muggleborns had not been allowed to come to Hogwarts that year— Ginny will remember for years how terrifying the blood purity checks had been, on the train, at the gates, in class— but Merlin, how they had come anyway. Ginny doesn’t know how the letters even reached the Muggleborn first years, but there they were, and Ginny feels the worst for them, knowing this school year would not be easy. There are certainly less Muggleborns this year, but still not all of them are gone; they slip past the blood purity checks with flimsy excuses, lied just to save their lives. 

"You don't look very familiar," Alecto Carrow sneers at Ginny's friend once, after she had performed a flawless spell in Defence. "Whose magic did you steal, _Murphy_?"

Clarissa's entire body is shaking, but beneath the table Ginny sees her hand firm and steady on her wand. Good girl. 

"I'm not Muggleborn," she says, the tremor in her voice almost unnoticeable. These days, _I'm not Muggleborn_ is an easier, safer lie than _I didn't steal any magic. It is mine_. "I'm— I'm half-blooded."

"Really." There is a permanent sneer on Carrow’s face. "You expect me to believe that. Murphy isn't a wizarding name— "

"She's my cousin," Ginny says conversationally, her voice very loud and very clear. In her head, she thanks Merlin that there are no Slytherins here; her Defence class is shared only with the Hufflepuffs. "Not a Muggleborn. Clary's dad is a halfblood too, to be honest, only his family took the nonmagical name. But Clary's mum’s a Prewett— did you know?"

A dangerous silence settles over the classroom. Everyone knows Clarissa is a Muggleborn; her Muggle father had raised her all by himself. Clarissa has never hidden this fact. Clarissa is as proud of her father as her father is of her. 

But Alecto Carrow's face twists into an ugly, disgusted glare. The Prewetts have opposed Voldemort in the last war, and in this one. "Was she.”

“Yeah," Clary snarls. All of them know that if they look it up, if they check the student file, they will find no Prewetts in her ancestry. But no one else says a word, and Ginny wants to thank every god out there. Clary puts her chin up and stares Alecto in the face with all the pride of a Muggleborn. "How dare you insult my lineage."

"Detention!" Alecto howls, just before the bell rings. 

Clarissa bursts into tears the moment she steps out of the classroom, breathing harsh and frantic. Their next class is Herbology. _Professor Sprout won't mind if you skip_ , a Hufflepuff murmurs, squeezing her shoulder, and Ginny leads her friend to the Room of Requirement. 

The Room is made for more than just Army meetings now. It is the last safe place in Ginny's world, but Clary will be the first to stay there for such a long time. 

"Don't go to Muggle Studies again," Ginny tells her, firm. "In fact, don't go to any class again. Especially don't go to detention tonight. Stay here. No one will find you." 

She doesn't have to tell her why. How many Muggleborns have disappeared since the school year started? How many had been said to have “gone home”? How many had lost their homes? No; Ginny doesn't need to say. Tonight Aberforth Dumbledore will unlock the door to the Hog’s Head and let Clarissa through, and one more Muggleborn student will be gone for good, but safe for good.

"God, what if they find Dad? I shouldn’t have come here, if they— if they do anything— "

Ginny doesn't need to say a word. Tonight, she thinks, tonight the Army has to send a letter. The Order has to find Joaquin Murphy and get him to a safe place. 

She lets Clarissa hold her hand in a death grip all night. 

ix.

By the next few days, Ginny is surprised to learn that she has, apparently, set some sort of an example. 

_D’you know what you did?_ Neville murmurs to her at lunch. _Now Cho Chang’s told everyone Su Li was distant family this morning—obviously they’re not— and now they’re both being questioned_. 

There are more— there are _several_ — a trickle of stories that reaches her slowly, the ever dependable flow of Hogwarts gossip. They say that Smith’s convinced the Carrows that Justin Finch-Fletchley was his cousin, several times removed, on his grandfather’s side. Lavender Brown’s declared that a Muggleborn second-year from Ravenclaw, whose name is also Brown, is her brother. 

They learn to be careful about it: they never openly confront the Carrows or Snape, and they never do it in front of someone who might tell the truth and betray them. It’s a casual, simple admission; it’s Anthony Goldstein clapping Muggleborn Elly Stein on the shoulder as if they have been family for years, Terry Boot calling little Samantha Boot sister— several counterfeit families created in a blink. 

It’s dangerous, and it’s _weird_ , they all know, but it’s necessary. Ginny doesn’t quite understand how she’s set a trend in a time like this, but she’s glad of it. It might be the best idea she’s had in her life. 

x.

Sometimes Ginny feels like it's her first year all over again— but it's worse. After all, she supposed, in first year the war had only been in her head, in Tom's soft soft words and the ink stains on her fingers. Now, it seems as though Tom and his war has devoured everything she has ever loved, and here she still is, wading through the ruins, looking through the rubble for some clue of what next. 

Ginny knows how Neville watches the owls come in anxiously every day, wondering if his Gran will finally manage to send a letter— coded, of course, and never using the same owl. She knows Seamus searches the newspapers every day, sick with fear, wondering if he will find his lover's name in the obituaries, _Muggleborn found dead_ , a footnote of a lost life, and Ginny— Ginny knows how that feels, because she does the same thing. 

She doesn’t let herself think about it, most days, doesn’t let herself think about Ron or Hermione or _Harry,_ how exhilarating and easy and _safe_ everything had been with him. She’s teetering on the edge of breaking, most days, on the knife’s edge, and remembering doesn’t help. 

But once in a while a letter will fly in, and Ginny will find herself scrambling to get her hands on it, desperate for good news. 

Talk of the war is confined to whispers in these months, to discreet checks of the Prophet and smuggled Quibbler issues, to the Silenced offices of the professors. The way they talk about it, Ginny thinks, it’s as if the war was a far-off thing, something to fear and observe from afar, a nightmare that could still, if they prayed and hoped and fought enough, disappear upon waking. 

Ginny disagrees. The war is _here_ , in this dying, corrupted school, in the empty seats where the Muggleborns and halfbloods should be, in the Carrows' fatal detentions, in the curses thrown behind closed office doors. 

Snape never shows up in the Great Hall. On the rare occasion that he does, he makes no mention of the dangers in and out of the school, the dangers he helped create, and Ginny knows she will loathe him forever. 

She’s not stupid: She knows Snape was on their side, once, and there are students who bring confusing stories, about Snape putting them in detention with Hagrid or Sprout instead of the Carrows, or Snape being indifferent to McGonagall berating a Slytherin’s bigotry. 

To Ginny, it won’t make a lick of difference. Nothing Snape does can make up for years of tormenting Harry and the Gryffindors, for betraying the Order, for letting Death Eaters into this school, and she hopes—she hopes Snape _knows._ If there is even a spark of guilt in those disgusting hateful eyes, she wishes it haunts him until he dies, and many times she hopes, too, that his death is soon, and slow, and painful.

Because she knows there’s going to be a fight. And she knows it must be soon, with the way McGonagall speaks quietly to Hagrid when the Carrows can’t hear; the way Malfoy looks scared and anticipatory all the time, now; the way Fred and George’s letters are so forcibly cheery. 

The way Harry still hasn’t been found, still is _out there,_ and it’s been months now.

The knowledge that something’s _coming_ keeps her terrified; it keeps her ready; it keeps her brave, because she still has to be, and that’s all she needs. It keeps her on her feet, the steadying thought that if there’s a fight, there’ll be a chance they can win it. There’ll be a chance they can _end it._

Most of the others have thrown away hope, but for some reason, Ginny clings to it like a lifeline.


End file.
